Zombies eat Seaweed Brains
by Morgan'sMorgue
Summary: Everyone knows that a Zombie's favorite food is seaweed brain. Percy Jackson AU/AR
1. Chapter 1

**Annabeth**

I didn't realise the world was ending until Percy Jackson kissed me.

It had just been a normal morning, I had gotten up, pulled on a black cammie and a red and cream plaid shirt. I found my dark grey skinny jeans on the floor under my dresser, which had annoyed me, that stupid step-brother of mine had been in my stuff again. It didn't help that he lived in the apartment permanently, while I went to my mum's house every second week. Which left Percy with plenty of time to mess about in my room.

I scowled, the cocky little seaweed brain

I opened my wardrobe, because I was sure that I left my brush there last time I was here. I opened the two doors and my lips pursed together in a thin line.

"Percy," I hissed through clenched teeth.

"Good morning, Annie," I whirled around and slammed the doors of my wardrobe shut. Percy was standing in my doorway, wearing a pair of tight ratty black jeans and nothing else, his black hair was still damp.

Most girls my age would have at least spared a glance to his bare chest, but I was not most girls, I was taking all AP classes and had skipped sixth grade. I had very little care for Percy's looks and chose to hate his personality rather that drool over his body, Percy drooled enough for both of us, actually.

"Have you stolen stuff from my room again?"

"I didn't steal anything, I did come in here last Friday, and well, it was bit of a mess," Percy admitted with a devilish grin on his lips. I glared at him and spotted my hairbrush under one of my text books. I grabbed it and started dragging it aggressive through my hair.

"Jesus, Annabeth," Percy chuckled. "You're going to rip you hair out."

"It's not my hair that I want to rip out," I muttered under my breath and Percy's grin got wider.

"Where are you going?"

"To the library, I need to finish an assignment." I picked up a few drawing off of my desk, they were plans for buildings I had always hoped that one day, I would see built.

"Cool, Your dad left you money on the counter, I moved it into the drawer next to so that smelly Gabe doesn't steal it," Both of us scrunched up our noses in disgust. The only thing that we had ever really had in common, apart from shared space and married parents, was a hatred for the vile smelling land lord that liked to let himself into the apartment early in the morning in the hopes of catching me or Sally showering. Percy had never behaved like my brother, except when smelly Gabe was around, then he behaved like a mother hen. Gabe also had a nasty habit of stealing stuff, never expensive stuff like phones or computers, but lose change and food were never safe when Smelly was around.

"We have _got_ to get a bolt lock for that door," I muttered.

"I know, but Mum says that we can't, it's in the lease contract," I nodded.

"You don't know what a lease contract is, do you?"

"I have absolutely no idea," I rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Au Revior, Kelp head."

"See you later, smart ass," Percy smirked at me as I grabbed my bag and hung it on my shoulder. I pushed passed him into the hall, I opened the cutlery drawer and took out the ten dollar note.

"Tell my dad I went to Starbucks before school,"

"Sure," Percy flashed me a smile that would have had most girls fumbling, but I just frowned and made a mental note to text dad about where I was going, when Percy got that tone of voice, I knew that he was going to do something.

"Hmm," I gave Percy a suspicious look, he continued grinning, and I wondered how he could do that for so long without his cheeks aching. I supposed he was used to it, that stupid grin rarely ever left his face.

I turned around walked out of the door. And ran right into Smelly Mcsmellalot.

"Gabe!" I said in surprise, and in the hope that Percy would hear me and come to my rescue. I looked at the door and waited for a moment, there were no sounds from within, no rescue there.

"Mornin' Annie-Beth," Gabe breathed and I wanted to hold my nose. He was standing way to close for comfort. And he didn't seem to own a toothbrush.

"It's Annabeth," I managed to say, without choking from the smell.

"Sorry, sweet cheeks," he grinned at Me and I saw Gabe inching around to the door. I frowned, he had been getting very weird lately, even more than normal, the way that he talked to me, the way that he leered at me. My dad had once shown me a DVD, about how to reconise the signs of a potential rapist. I suddenly wished that my father had never shown that DVD to me.

I hoped that my dad would come out of the front door, or Sally, or even Percy, Gabe was never so blatantly creepy around other people. But no one came, I was on my own.

"Uh, Gabe, I need to get to school, I have class," that was a lie, but Gabe didn't need to know that.

He just smiled at hme with those rotten yellow teeth of his and I was hit with another blast of death breath.

"Go on then," I tuned around and walked past him, pressing my shoulder against the door so that I didn't have to touch him, Gabe opened the door to the appartment, Percy looked up in surprise from the breakfast bar and he caught sight me for a second, I gave him a look that clearly said *don't get us kicked out of the apartment.

Before I could finally get past Gabe, he pinched me on the ass and I yelped in surprise. Percy gave me a weird look. I hurried down the hallway and away from Gabe. I didn't want him to catch me on the way down to the bottom floor, so I took the stairs. I practically sprinted out of the building.

Once I was a safe distance away, I slowed down and shuddered. Gabe was gross, I was going to have to have another talk with my dad about his invasion of my personal space.

**Percy**

I scowled at Gabe as he entered the room, He just smiled evilly back at me.

"What do you want?" I sighed, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

"Percy!" m mother looked at me from her bedroom door, and I felt guilty instantly.

"I'm just inspecting my _property_" when he said 'property' Gabe's eyes slid towards my mum. I clenched my fists under the table, if it were up to me, I would grab Gabe by the collar of his shirt and slam his head into the wall until he learnt a little respect for my mum and Annabeth. Gabe may have thought that I hadn't saw, but I had seen him touching Annabeth just before he walked in, the idea made me bubble with anger.

"Percy" my mother put her hand on my shoulder, I forced myself to calm down, I couldn't get them kicked out, Annabeth would kill me. I looked up from the bar and stood up, putting my toast down on my plate.

"I should get ready for school mum," I kissed her on the cheek and left the room before I could do something stupid.

I went into the bathroom. My shirt was on the toilet seat, I heard Annabeth walking towards her wardrobe and hadn't had time to put on my shirt. And there may have been a part of me that had hopped that her eyes would linger. But like always, they didn't.

Annabeth had decided ages ago that I was an idiot, at our first meeting, on Annabeth's first day of kindergarten, I was playing tag. I had been chasing after Grover, who had legs like a mountain goat, and he had leapt over Annabeth without her even noticing. I had tried to do the same thing, but at the time, I hadn't quite acquired the agility that came with my skateboarding, and had tripped over Annabeth's knees and ended up sprawled out on the ground. She hadn't taken it to well and had started to hit me on the head with her book.

I had cried, but hey, I was six!

I smiled. Good times.

**Annabeth**

I looked both ways before crossing the road, and walked into the local Starbucks. The smell of coffee filled the air And my mouth watered. I got in line but regretted it the moment I did. Drew Tanaka was on duty smiling sweetly at all of the customers. When she got to me, a sparkle of malice came to her eye.

"Hot chocolate, please," I put the money down on the counter in the hopes that Drew would just leave me alone. But I was unlucky, the other day a girl had stood up to Drew and declared that she was a pathetic dictator who had no real talents except for being a bitch. And now Drew needed to show someone that she was still queen bitch and no one was going to change that.

"Do you want sugar or artificial sweetener?" Drew smiled her malevolent smile.

"Sugar," Drew raised an eyebrow and batted her eye lashes.

"Really?" she looked me up and down.

"Yes," I gritted my teeth. "Sugar."

Drew shrugged as if to say 'your the boss' and turned her back on me to take another person's drink and handed it to them. She smile sweetly and waved goodbye.

"Where's your brother?" Drew battered her eyelashes.

"He's at college, he left last semester."

"Not _that_ brother, the other one, Percy," I frowned.

"He's my step brother, we're not blood related," I liked to point that out, Percy's stupidity may have been gene related, and I didn't want anyone thinking that we shared those genes. I couldn't go around having people believing that Percy was my actual brother.

"Hey, that means that you two could date, you know of you wanted to," I shuddered in horror. Was this girl mad, or just stupid?

"That'll never happen," I have Drew a look to remember and took my got chocolate off of the counter.

"Bye Annabeth," Drew waved and tilted her head to side, her blindingly sweet smile still of her face. I couldn't help but grimace as I left the shop.

On my way to the library, I sipped my hot chocolate, it's chocolaty creaminess making up for the pain that I went through getting it.

When I entered the library, Kory looked up. She was a pretty girl with long black hair that she tied up in a braid down her back and she had sea green eyes with a mischievous glint that made teachers hone in on her with their trouble-maker radars. But her cuteness made up for it. Percy often dumped Kory in the library because he was to cool to look after his genius little sister in the mornings. I had always felt sorry for Kory, I mean, having Percy Jackson as an older brother and Idol couldn't have been easy.

"Hi, Kory," I sighed.

"Was Percy being annoying?"

"Yes," we exchanged her age, Kory spoke like a teenager, even though she was barley ten years old. "And then I had to get my chocolate from Drew," Kory arched her eyebrows.

"She's not very nice."

"You have no idea" I sat across from her and sipped my drink. Kory was tapping away on her laptop, she was probably writing up another bizarre thesis for her English class that would change the way the world looked at Shakespeare. Typical Kory, sometimes I thought how Kory got all of the brains and left none for her brother, but I knew that it didn't work like that. Technically, if Percy was older than Kory, he should have gotten the brains, so Percy should be smarter. I almost laughed. What a ridiculous thought.

Sometimes I felt sorry for Kory, she was so cute, being a ten year old girl with the brain of a twenty year old must have been hard.

We worked in comfortable silence for a while, I was absorbed in my book, and Kory was playing bejeweled while she thought I wouldn't see

"Hi," someone said, and we turned around and I smiled at the newcomer.

"Hi, Luke," I gestured to the chair next to her. "Want to sit down?" Luke dropped a pile of books onto the table.

"What are you doing? Cramming?" Kory frowned, though she'd never had to cram for a test in her life, her photographic memory had gotten her out of that.

"No, just research." Kory went back to her laptop, nodding, her eyes now fixed on the blue glow of the screen. She did smirk at me and make googly eyes. I swear my eyeballs almost rolled out of my head. This girl was almost as bad as Piper, trying to set everyone up with their 'perfect partner'.

Luke gave me a smile, I flashed him one back.

**Percy**

Michael Yew was a bit of an idiot when it came to school. He was a lot like me, he was intelligent, but just really hated applying himself.

Which was one of heaps reasons why we were friends.

And on that morning, we were discussing my punishment. Three days ago, Michael had dared me to go steal one of the security tapes from Gabe's office. I had managed to get one, but I made the mistake of watching one of them, Gabe used the security cameras to make sure that none of the more attractive women in the building slipped in the shower.

There was no way in hell that I was showing Michael a video of my step-sister in the shower. I'd rather take the punishment.

An evil grin spread across Michael's face and I got this sinking feeling in his stomach.

"As your punishment for loosing what was a very easy bet, you must kiss your step-sister on the mouth," I almost choked.

"Dude, that's sick, and not in a good way either."

"It's not sick, it's incest," I gave him a weird look.

"Yeah, and Incest is a sick-in-a-bad-way kind of thing." Michael shrugged and smiled.

"You're the one who lost our bet," he smirked that evil smirk of his and I almost groaned. If I refused to do this, then Michael could post some very embarrassing videos of Facebook.

"Alright." I sighed. "I'll do it." Michael laughed and clapped his hands in delight.

"In front of me," Michael reminded me.

"Yeah, I know," I muttered. I stood up and gestured for Michael to follow me. I found Kory and Annabeth in the library with one of their friends, I had never learnt his name, unless he did something stupid, like try to ask Annabeth out on a date, I probably never would.

"Hello," I sat down next to Annabeth, I gently grabbed her arm and she frowned at me and put her book down on the table.

"Yes?"

"Oh, you know just thought that I'd come and talk to my sisters,"

"And why'd you think that?"

"Well, you see there was this bet..." I trailed off . Well it was now or never.

I leant forward and kissed Annabeth on the lips for a few seconds before she shoved me off.

"What the hell is wrong with you?

"I had to kiss my sister, and, well, my step-sister," I flashed Michael a sarcastic smirk, who rolled his eyes and flipped me off.

"Thank you, Percy, now I have to go and wash my mouth out with soap." Annabeth glared at me but I just smiled at her. I couldn't help it, she was so fun to argue with.

"Bye," I waved at Kory over my shoulder. My sister smiled ad waved. Giving me one of her smiles, which was basically her way of singing 'Percy and Annabeth sitting in a tree.

Sometimes, I thought that my little sister was the female version of Damon from _the Omen_. Only way more evil.

**Annabeth**

I stood up and packed my stuff into my bag.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked, frowning in concern.

"To rinse out my mouth, he tastes of kelp," Luke laughed and threw his head back. I smiled a little bit, he was very cute when he dd that.

"I thought that you were joking," I scrunched up my nose in disgust and shook my head.

"Nope, and I need to use the toilets anyway, and then I need to go talk to Mr. James about my maths assignment,and you know how he carries on, so I need to be really quick" I left the library and went towards the bathrooms. As I walked past one of the open windows, I saw one of the football players chasing a few cheerleaders around. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Idiots.

I walked into the girls bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. _I need to get out more_, I decided. My healthy tan was starting to fade and the bags under my eyes were starting to stand out.

I turned on the water and washed my hands, and then I grabbed a bit of paper towel and wiped my lips. Next time I saw Percy, I was going to hit to hit him again, honestly, his lips didn't taste of kelp, they tasted like honey, which I found really annoying since she hated honey.

There was a moaning sound in a stall behind me and I looked around, one of the doors was closed and engaged. I turned the water off and the bathroom went quiet. Someone was still moaning, I walked towards the pale purple door until I was standing right in front of it.

"Hey, are you okay?" the moaning became more frantic and something crashed into the stall's door from the other side. I took a step back in surprise.

"What the hell!"

The door shook again, and then there was a brief moment of silence. Then the moans returned, sounding more excited now. I looked down at the floor and almost screamed. But I kept my mouth shut, this was ridiculous. It was impossible. But when I looked again, the head of the cheer leading squad was still trying to crawl out of the stall through the gap under the door. There was blood and bits of flesh stuck between her teeth, and one of her eyes was hanging down her cheek. I backed away as Katie reached out to grab my foot. The fingernails on her left hand had all been ripped off and congealed blood was dribbling out of her skin like cold gravy.

" .god" I stumbled backwards. Katie was having some luck dragging herself out from under the stall. She was getting closer, and I realised that pretty soon, she was going to be standing. So I did the only sensible thing to do when a Zombie's arms were in the way of your only escape.

I ran forward and kicked Katie in the face. The Zombie girl was slow and not very smart. She tried to grab my foot as I puled away, But Katie seemed to have been blinded temporarily by my kick. But that didn't stop the zombie from stumbling to her feet and lunging for the last place that she had seen Me.

So they're not completly stupid, good to know.

I dashed past her and towards the door. I threw it open and stumbled into the empty hallway.

There was still an hour until school started, and only a few dedicated people were there at that time, well, a few dedicated people and Percy Jackson.

I went back to the corridor of the school that was really just and expanse of windows. outside, where before there had been cheerleaders in their skimpy uniforms, was a few corpses with what looked like the remnants of tight red and white dresses, but I couldn't tell if it was the same colour. The red material would have stayed the same, and the white material would have been stained.

I covered her mouth and let out a sob. My entire body was shaking and I had to lean against the wall to stop myself from collapsing.

There was a grunt from the other end of the hallway. I stood up and saw the same boy that had been chasing the cheer leaders. His eyes were wide and wild, blood dripped down his cheek from deep scratches all over his face. A large chunk of his neck had been ripped out. Blood and spit dribbled out of his mouth, it took me a few seconds to recognise Becondorf. I struggled to my feet. The Zombie-thing set its eyes on me and started stumbling closerwith alarming speed.

I staggered backwards and ran down the hallway. The Zombie bellowed and pursued me, slipping in the blood of its last victim.

I threw open a door, and nearly fell into the Janitor's closet. The Janitor himself was a pile of bones on the floor. I didn't think that he was going to get up.

I slammed the door shut and pulled the latch across. But one look at the screws told me that the latch had been screwed on several times in the same place, it wouldn't hold. I surveyed my surroundings, that was what they'd told us to do in self defence class. Use the things around you.

I saw several industrial cleaning solvents, some rubber gloves, a few splay bottles and several brooms and mops. The large floor cleaner was folded up, I saw the power cord, it would be of no use. I didn't know if there was any power in here.

I looked back at the solvents and then at the tin of floor polish. This was a rudimentary idea, but it was all that I had.

I grabbed a spray bottle and filled it up with the solvent, I found the one with the highest pH and mixed in a spray bottle with some water.

Then I dragged the polish and tipped it over the floor, so that it ran into the drain in the middle of the floor, the ground was raised slightly around the edges, so the polish ran right down the drain. If Grover had been there, he would have scolded me for damaging the environment, I almost rolled my eyes.

I stood in the corner of the room, squished into the corner next to the door. The dark blue wood rumbled as Beckendorf threw himself against it, again, and again, I could see the screws in the latch coming loose. How much longer did I have now?

The door was about to give in, so I yanked it open and Beckendorf was thrown into the room by his own momentum. He crashed into the wall with a thud and tried to get up. But the incredibly slippery polished stopped him.

If he'd been smarter, maybe he would have slowed down and tried to drag himself out of the puddle and maybe take off his clothes. But he wasn't smart, so he continued to slither on the floor. I skipped over the polish and into the hallway. I sprayed the solvent on my shoes, removing any of the polish that may have stuck.

I pulled out her phone and dialled Percy's number, I hoped that Kory was with him, otherwise I wouldn't know where to look. Kory didn't have a phone. She was ten for god's sake.

Percy answered on the first ring.

"Annabeth!" he hissed. "You would not believe this! There are these-"

"Zombies, Yeah, Percy, I know, Katie Gardener just tried to eat my face, And Beckendorf had a go too," there was a rustling sound on the other end of the line.

"Annabeth, where are you?"

"I'm next to the east entrance."

"Find an empty classroom," Percy ordered. I didn't argue, I saw a classroom across from me, it was drama studio, mostly empty except for a few chairs and a grand piano. Not many places for a Zombie to hide.

"I've got one," I said quietly, and crept into the drama room.

"What room?"

"The Drama studio, you know, the one where we went to do our counselling session that time," Percy said something to someone an then spoke to me again.

"Annabeth, Kory and I are coming. Just wait there, lock the door. Kory says that she'll tap her name out on the door in Morse code," I hung up the phone and flicked the lock on the door and sat under the piano so that I was out of sight through all of the windows. I was a little bit shocked that for once in my life, I was actually wanted to see seaweed brain. What was the world coming to?

I considered searching the internet but when I checked my phone's credit I decided against it.

I decided to call my dad while she was waiting.

After a few rings, my father picked up.

"Annabeth!" he cried in relief. "You're alive!"

"Yeah, Dad," I said softly. I felt overcome with the urge to cry like a little girl. "I'm alive."

This shouldn't be happening. I got up this morning and everything was fine, the streets were a little empty, but no one noticed, or cared.

"Where are you? I'll com-" there was a guttural cry in the background and my dad cursed, using language that I would never expect to come out of his mouth.

"Dad?" I asked.

"Annabeth, I have to go, go with Percy and Kory, find somewhere safe. I love you." and with that, my father hung up on me.

I felt sick. This morning, I'd been attacked, and there was a Zombie running around in the school, Possibly more than one, and my father might be dead.

I was tempted to cry again, and I could feel her eyes tearing up.

_No_ I told myself. _No, I'm not some helpless heroine who needs saving. I'm Annabeth Chase. There is no way that my step siblings are coming through that door and finding me in a sobbing heap on the floor._

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, I forced all thoughts of Zombies out of my head by making myself mutter Shakespeare's sonnets one through to ten, and then I murmured a few pages of '*The Buildings of Greece; A complete guide to Greek Architecture*'

Then I heard the knocking.

-.- - .-. -.-

I crawled out from under the piano and stumbled towards the door. I opened the door and saw Kory, her eyes wide with tear tracks down her face. There was blood splattered down the front of her jean skirt and black leggings.

"Kory!" I threw her arms around my little step-sister's neck. Kory hugged me back, clutching me tightly.

There was a moan in the distance and I pulled them both into the room and into the corner. I closed the door and flicked the lock shut.

"What are we going to do?" Kory asked softly.

"We need to go home."

"My dad said to go somewhere safe. Do you really think home will be safe?"

"You got through to your Dad?" I nodded and Percy looked troubled.

"My Mum... she's not answering her phone." I winced and looked at Kory. I knew how close they both were to their mother.

"Kory are you okay?" Kory shook her head.

"Annabeth, w-we were in the library a-a-and-" Percy pulled her into a hug and whispered something into her ear that sounded something like "We'll tell her later."

"We don't have time for that now, we need to go...home?" I looked at Percy and nodded in agreement.

"Who's blood is on your clothes?" I was almost afraid to ask. _Please don't be Luke's, Please don't be Luke's_

"Michael's," Percy said, he was, like his sister, covered in blood. But it was much more spread out across his body. As if he'd been in a fight.

"Have any of you swallowed it?" Both Kory and Percy shook their heads.

"Do you think that they're like, real Zombies?" Kory asked quietly. I noticed that she still had her laptop.

"Look it up, you're connected to the school's internet," Percy and I sat behind her. Kory opened up her internet and searched Google, we found that CNN was streaming straight onto YouTube.

"...Zombie like creatures have invaded the united states, it is unclear exactly where the epidemic started, but it appears to have begun somewhere within the state of New York, the national defence department has advised citizens to stay inside their homes to stop the spread of the plague..." more footage of people running in terror from packs of snarling zombies flashed across the screen. An unfortunate woman tripped over something in the middle of the road, and a group of zombies descended on her. A zombie leapt in front of the camera, and the footage cut out.

We stared at images all of similar things, Zombies causing havoc, The Military moving in and cordoning off entire blocks of the city while they tried to kill the Zombies.

I looked over at Percy, he had a frown on his face. This was the longest he'd ever gone without making a joke. Kory was biting her lip staring at the screen. Her eyes were wide, she looked so worried. I wanted to comfort her, but what could she say? _Don't worry, it's only the apocalypse?_ Yeah, like that'd help.

Percy reached over my shoulder and closed the tab.

"We're going to be fine." Percy said out loud. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or Kory, or even himself.

"Yeah," I said quietly. I put my hand on Kory's shoulder and squeezed. Sometimes I forgot that Kory was still just a ten year old girl, no matter how mature she seemed, she was still a scared kid at heart, and nothing could change that.

"We need to go Home," Percy said again. Kory shut down her computer and stood up.

"How are we going to get there?" Kory asked, looking up at her older brother. She was so adorable when she was serious.

"We'll have to walk, the Zombies seem to be attracted by noise, so we can't use a car," I looked up at my step brother. He was actually making sense. _Oh dear gods, we're all going to die_

"Yeah, Kat- I mean, the Zombie in the Bathroom didn't react until I turned the water on, and she sounded, excited when I asked her if she was okay." Percy looked at me for a moment, a frown on his face.

"Is everything okay?" I watched him, he had that guilty look on his face, the one that he always had whenever he decided

"Not really,"

"Anything I need to know?"

"...No." on any other day, I would have had a go at him, who was he to make decisions about what I should and shouldn't know? But today was not any other day, our lives were in danger.

Kory looked at me and then at Percy.

"At least we won't get pulled over by the hall Monitors," Kory muttered. "I'm not getting a detention in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse," I couldn't help but giggle, Kory said it like she was complaining about the amount of homework that her science teacher had given her. Percy smiled a bit, too.

"Let's go home," Kory nodded and looked around the room.

"What do we do if we get attacked again?" Kory's Question hung in the air, Percy shrugged.

"We hit it hard enough on the head so that it doesn't get up again."

"What if there's a horde?"

"We run, very, very fast." I said after thinking for a moment.

"If we get separated, we rendezvous at our apartment," Percy nodded.

"If it's not safe, then we should all try to meet back here, in this room."

"Okay, Lets go. "

I opened the door, just before I was about to go out, Percy pulled me back in and looked out the door. He grabbed my hand and poked his head out of the door.

"Come on," Percy muttered and look a step into the hallway. I followed behind him, looking around the deserted school hallway.

"We'll leave through there," Percy pointed to the door a little way down the hallway.

Kory walked a few paces behind us. She stayed silent, the only reason I knew that she was still there was because I could hear her footsteps behind us.

Percy pushed open the doors and they entered the car park. We all froze, expecting to see a zombie coming right for us.

Kory moved in front of me and looked inside one of the cars. "It's Miss Dodds's car, do you remember, Percy? She's the one that gave you the detention that got you kicked out of Yancy."

"Don't Remind me," he rolled his eyes. I had found the year when Percy went to Yancy to be one of the most peaceful of my life. It was horrible. Nothing to do, and no one to yell at.

"Why is that important?" I asked.

"Because, there's a dog in the back. Miss Dodds was allergic to dogs, we put dog hair in her bed once, so that she broke out." Percy pulled the door handle of the car and it popped open.

The dog in the back seat hopped out and licked Kory's hand, Kory smiled a bit and scratched his head.

"Kory, we can't take the dog, it'll bark at everything," Kory ignored her brother.

"I think I'll call him Frank."

"*Kory*."

"*Percy*," Kory and Percy started each other down for a few seconds, and then Percy gave in.

"Fine, but make sure it doesn't bark." he snapped. She grinned and patted the dog on the head.

"Come on, Frank, let's go," she smiled and the dog, Frank nuzzled her hand and wagged his tail.

"Stupid dog," Percy muttered. I rolled her eyes, I felt better now that I knew that Kory was a more like her regular self, I hoped that Kory would be able to keep her mind reigned in, she had a vivid imagination and I didn't know how well she would do fighting a Zombie.

"Let's just go, and a dogs a quite smart, they might be able to find a zombie before we could," Percy flashed me his lop-sided smile.

"I don't know why you know so much about Zombies, I'm the expert, I've watched way more apocalypse movies than you have," I scoffed and gave Percy a little shove.

"I read world war Z," Percy smirked and went to say something else, but I glared at him. "Don't even think about it, Kelp head."

"Think about what?"

"Making a joke about how uch I read. I was just going to say that I watched the movie version." He smirked at me and I really wanted to slap his face.

"The flirting is very cute, but can we focus on getting home alive without any large chunks taken out of our bodies." Percy flipped Kory off, I slapped his hand. But I did notice that he stopped standing quite so close to me, and his cheeks were slightly pinker than before, well, under the blood that was smeared on his face.

"Shut up Kory," Percy reached into Miss Dodds's car.

"What are you doing?" Annabeth hissed.

"Getting my skateboard, what better to use to kill zombies?" I realised that she didn't have a weapon of any kind, and that worried me. There wasn't really anything around that I could use if we were attacked, and I didn't want Percy to have to fight the Zombies alone.

"Let's go," Percy started walking towards the corner of the school. I noticed that he was keeping close to the wall, I couldn't help but smile, it looked like kelp head might have a little more inside his skull than just seaweed.

We walked around the school in silence, all afraid that if we spoke or made a loud noise, a horde of Zombies would descend on us and rip the flesh from our bones.

Percy constantly looked back to check that Kory and I were following him. When we came to the deserted street outside the school, Kory whimpered a bit when she saw a dead body in the middle of the road.

"Don't make any loud noises," Percy ordered. "We don't know if people are infected by a bite, or if it's just..."

"Airborne?" Kory suggested. Percy grimaced.

"I was going to say random," he kept a tight grip on his skateboard, his eyes were alert, constantly scanning the area around them for threats.

Frank trotted behind Kory, occasionally freezing and tilting his head to the side to listen out for anything dangerous.

We were so close to being home and safe when the three zombies stumbled out in front of us.

"Oh shit." Percy sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**

**Did you like how I introduced Frank in there? Anyway. I'm a bit worried that Piper is way to OOC. But then we never really see the kick ass part of Piper in the newer books. (or any book other than The Lost Hero). **

**The last Chapter was a little weird, (especially in Percy's point of view) I made him sound to much like Annabeth, but that was because I originally wrote everything in third person, but then I went back and changed it to first, so Percy ma sound a little...overly intelligent. Not that he's stupid or anything (okay, he sort of is,) but he's smart in a different way to Annabeth.** . **Anyway, hope you enjoy this Chapter.**

The first zombie was an elderly lady, the second was a young woman, and the third was a middle aged man.

The man snarled at us and lunged, Percy swung his skateboard and it connected with the his head with a sickening splat. Zombie goo spilled out onto the pavement and all over a nearby car. The two women attacked at the same time, the old one went for me, the other attacked Kory.

I kicked the zombie in the chest and sent it stumbling backwards into a near by car, the door was open, and the zombie's foot became entangled in the pedals, and I had an idea.

As the zombie tried to grab me, not caring that it might rip it's own leg off, I ran forward and slammed the door closed. Of course, the zombie's head prevented it from closing properly, but the woman was old, and frail, her bones were brittle, and with a few more slams, he grey brain fluid started dribbling from her nose and ears and the dead body was dead again.

I turned my attention to Kory, who's Zombie was laying on the floor, shivering and convulsing. Frank was sniffing it, and growling quietly, standing between Kory and the corpse

"What'd you do?" Annabeth noticed a syringe in her hand. "What is that? Heroin?" Kory's eyes widened and she shook her head.

"No! It's, it's antibiotics, really strong stuff. It should have taken hours before it had any effect," I frowned. I didn't really care about the zombies at that moment.

"Why were you carrying antibiotics around in your pocket?" she hesitated for a second and dropped the syringe into her computer bag.

"It's a long story," she stepped over the shuddering corpse and walked to Percy, she pulled a tissue out of her pocket.

"You should wipe the stuff of your face, I don't want to wake up tonight with you trying to take a bite out of me.

I could hear moans in the distance. We didn't have time for this, if we weren't careful, we would be swarmed.

"We need to go," Kory offered her a tissue, she took it and wiped the gunk from around her face.

Percy,Kory and I all started walking quickly down the street. Percy seemed even more agitated, I was starting to worry, he'd never been this serious before.

"It's just around the corner," Percy muttered.

We stopped at the edge of the building and listened. There didn't seem to be any moan coming from that direction.

Percy walked around the corner, and reached behind him to grab my hand, and I did the same for Kory.

I pulled my step-sister along and have her hand a reassuring squeeze.

We stood on the edge of the road when Kory spoke.

"If people ever repopulate the earth, I wonder if they'll have zombie crossing?" Percy froze and looked at Kory for a moment before laughed, the sound echoed down thew empty streets, so Percy clamped his hand over his mouth the stop the hysterical snorts. I was laughing too, and she didn't even know why, it wasn't really that funny.

_I must be going crazy already, isn't that supposed to happen in a few months when the stress is really getting to us?_ I looked over at Kory, who had small smile on her face, she seemed quite pleased that she had been able to make her brother laugh at a time like this. I had to admit that it was quite a feat, Percy didn't laugh much normally, he smirked a lot, but very little seemed to amuse him ever since his first step-father, Paul Blofis, not my father, had died in that accident a few years ago.

After a few minutes, we stopped laughing like idiots, Percy looked both ways again, and walked across the road, he seemed happier though, more hopeful. I wondered if Kory was making him laugh on purpose so that his brain would release endorphins to make him happier. Or if she just wanted to make her btrother happier. Kory was a very clever girl, I wondered if she might be able to do something about the virus. Maybe she would be the one to find a cure one day. But I forced the idea from my mind, that sort of stuff only happened in movies.

Percy opened the door to the lobby, he walked quietly over to the stairs.

"Come one, let's go!" He whispered and opened the door to the stairwell. We walked up the stairs quietly, but what little noise we did make echoed around us.

When they came to their landing, Kory crouched down and peeked in the door. She groaned quietly and turned to face me.

"Gabe's outside our door," Percy's eyes seemed to narrow and his scowl returned. He pulled Kory away front the door and stood her in front of me.

"Stay here," he whispered and slid into the hallway through the open door. Kory and I gave each other a look and crowded around the door to peer in through the crack.

Percy was hissing at Gabe, demanding to know what he was doing. But Gabe wasn't saying anything, he was still trying to open the door, but when he realised that Percy was talking to him, he turned to look at him. His eyes were glassy, but brght, almost, luminescent. And his skin, it wasn't just a trick of the light. His skin was turning grey!

Percy seemed to realise that Gabe was a Zombie and he raised his skateboard. He took a swing and the board smashed Gabe's head open. He withered around on the floor for a while before he was finally still.

Kory stood up and ran to her older brother.

"Percy, i-if Gabe's a zombie, then there must be more in the building," Kory whispered. She knocked on the door to the apartment. "Mum!" she whispered. "Mum! Come and open the door!" there was the sound of footsteps from within, and the door opened, Sally Jackson threw her arms around Percy's neck.

"I thought that you were all dead!" she cried and looked around the hallway.

"Where's Annabeth?" I took this as my Que, I walked down the hallway, Sally seemed to get younger as the relief passed across her face.

"Come in," she waved us inside, and then locked the door using several different latches and chains.

"Where'd you get them?" Percy asked.

"They're the ones that I bought a few days ago, I was going to put them on the door, but I didn't know if they would fit, so I decided to buy a few of them," Percy grabbed his mother and hugged her.

"I thought that you were dead,too" he muttered. Sally smiled kissed his forehead.

"I couldn't leave you on your on your own," she bit her lip and hugged Kory. "Or you, Kory." And then she looked at me and hugged me too. "Or you, Annabeth."

"Thanks, Sally, um...have you heard from my dad? I mean, I called him like, and hour ago, but... there was some interference" I trailed off. Sally shook her head.

"He left a message on my answering machine, but that was it." I felt a bit like bursting into tears, but I decided not to. It was to early in the day, and I always fell asleep when I was tired.

I looked at her step mother. "Sally, what do we do know?"

Sally looked at Kory, she was still quite short for her age, she only came up to Sally's rib cage.

"Mum?" Kory asked. Sally pulled her closer.

"We wait, everything will be fine, a little different, but fine," Kory bit her lip and nodded, Sally sat down on her the large armchair, Kory squeezed in beside her and laid on her shoulder.

**Percy**

I knew that if I said it out loud, would get two slaps on the face, and one kick in the leg since Kory wasn't tall enough to slap me, but as the only male in the house, I felt responsible for making sure that my sisters and mother got through this whole ordeal alive.

But how typical that I, the boy with the hero complex, got stuck in a house with three strong willed feminist in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse.

I felt weird. I had expected to come home to utter chaos, I thought that his entire life would change completely when I got home. But everything felt normal. My little sister was out in the living room with my mum, and Annabeth, well, she was being Annabeth. Except earlier when I had held her hand. That had been a little weird, I almost blushed right there and then. Almost.

There was a sound from the doorway, I turned around to look at my step-sister.

"Uh, Hi,"

"Yeah, Hi," Annabeth moved past me to grab a coke out of the fridge.

"What do you think's going to happen now?" I asked her because I really wanted to know. She was really smart and could see things in a way that was very different to me.

"Stuff," Annabeth said, pulling the ring on the can and taking a sip.

"That's it?" I asked. For once, I want to have an actual conversation with her, and that's all that she says? "No words of wisdom? No hitting be in the side of the head and calling me a seaweed brain because this is obviously all going to be okay in a few days.

"Well, there's lots of stuff that could happen, I don't have enough information to figure out what's more likely." I nodded. That made sense, sort of.

"Could you like, tell me the most likely things to happen?" Annabeth paused for a second and gestured for me to follow her. I grabbed a coke from the fridge and opened it before going after her.

Annabeth lead me into her bedroom, she sat down on the head bed and crossed her legs, I sat down on the dark grey quilt across from her.

"Okay, so, the way I see it, there are four ways this could go. One, is that in a few days, the military will come through here and kill all of the zombies, or something like that," I nodded and silently prayed to whatever gods were listening that that was the case.

"Okay, now, Two; It takes a few months for the countries of the world to get their acts together and develop a cure or start killing off all of the zombies and all of that stuff."

"And three; The world is so under populated that it takes generations before there are enough people to start taking back the world."

"What's number four?" I asked, a feeling of dread made my throat tighten, my voice sounded hoarse, like I'd been yelling to much or I had a cold.

"The Human race reduced in size so much that it is completely annihilated." I choked a it and nodded, even though I'd been expecting it.

"And which do you think is most likely?"

"I'm hoping for the first, but to be honest, I'm expecting two or three," I was silent for a minute. Months? Years? That' how long it could take? My baby sister may have to grow up in a world where four out of every five living things (if you can even call a zombie that) will try to eat her?

"Oh," I muttered.

"Percy, we will be completely fine." Annabeth must have realised that her comforting me wasn't a normal thing to do, and might just make me feel worse because she added "Well, us girls will be, but if I have to put up with your 'man of the house' crap I might just throw you to the zombies myself.

I smiled, it wasn't a very convincing smile, but it was still a smile.

"Thanks," I stood up and left Annabeth's room. But when I got to the door, I stopped and turned back to dearest step sister.

"You know those antique Greek replicas that your dad bought?" I asked and Annabeth's eyes narrowed.

"Percy, they cost two hundred dollars, each! You can't seriously be suggesting that we use them?"

"Yes, I am,We're in the middle of a real life Zombie apocalypse, Annabeth, and I'm sure that your dad would agree with me." Annabeth scoffed.

"He would not!"

"Sure he would, if he had to choose between some antiques being damaged and his family being well defended, which do you think he'd pick?" Annabeth stopped for a second and sighed.

"Fine, I'll get them out, but they're just Knives."

"They're knives made for ancient Greek warriors to fight monsters with, Annabeth, not to slice the pork."

"The Greeks never fought monsters, Percy, they were just myths." she sighed, like I was such and idiot. Which I am, sometimes but i choose to ignore it.

"Yeah, like that's important right now." Annabeth sighed an sipped her coke before putting it on the bedside table.

"Annabeth..." she looked at me.

"Yes?"

"You know Mcl- I mean Piper..."

"Yes, Percy I know Piper, the girl with the movie star dad that was the first girl not to run away screaming about cooties when you came near her?" Annabeth smirked a bit and I rolled my eyes.

"Well, her dad was going to act in this movie, so he and Piper got all of these books, but he ended up quitting because of something that I don't remember."

"And?"

"Well, it was a zombie movie, and they were all like, Apocalypse survival guides and Bear Grylles 'n stuff, and she gave most of them to me, because you know how Piper feels about zombies." Annabeth stood up and I showed her to my room, where I pilled a box of books out from under my bed and handed them to Annabeth. She sifted through them and picked a few.

"Read this," Annabeth shoved a copy of _The Zombie survival guide_ by Max Brooks under my nose.

"I'll go through the rest and see if they're any good." And then Annabeth left my room.

"Crazy girl," I sighed.

I sat down an emptied my pockets onto my dresser.

I collapsed onto my bed.

And then my phone started playing _Boulevard of Broken Dreams_ by Green Day. I sat bolt right up.

_That's McLean's ringtone..._

I stumbled towards my dresser and answered the call.

"Pipes!" I cried in surprise.

"Yeah, Jackson, I get that you're happy to hear from me 'n all, but you see, I'm being chased by these...uh...guys-" she seemed a little bit out of breath.

"McLean, are you being chased by zombies?"

"Oh, good, you know," she sighed in relief.

"Yeah, where are you?"

"I'm about eight blocks away, being chased by a crowd of Zombies. Do you mind if I crash at yours?"

"Of course not, can you ditch the dead-beats?"

"I can loose a few of them, I'm on my board," I smiled a little, I knew from experience that trying to catch McLean while she was boarding was like trying t catch roadrunner.

"Good, just do some stunts, that'll ditch 'em quick."

"No, Percy! II have no helmet! I don't want to fall and crack my head open." Percy frowned.

"I'll come and get you, okay? Where are you coming from?"

"I've just passed Bakers Delight, Jackson, hurry up." McLean hung up the phone and I put it in my pocket.

"Mum! I'm going to help Piper," I called, I was at the door before Kory latched herself onto my leg.

"No! No! Stay here!" she shrieked.

"Percy, Piper lives on the other si-" My mother began

"No, she's almost here, and I'm going to get her." mum sighed and picked up her keys from the side table.

"This is for Fredrick's bike, try not to break it." My mother kissed me on the cheek and Kory hugged me, I kissed her forehead and walked out the door. I could hear the latch being pulled across and my little sister sobbing.

* * *

I pulled on Mr. Chase's spare helmet, and examined his bike, it seemed okay, and I knew how to drive it, so what if I didn't have my permit? I used to ride bikes along dirt tracks when I was a younger, and what could the police do? Most of them were probably either at home or being eaten.

I turned on the engine and couldn't help but grin.

It's at times like these that I love how much my life sucks.

I went roaring out of the garage and down the road.

I could swerved around the corner, the bike screeched and I saw a few Zombies look up and come towards me, but in a moment, I was gone.

I could see Piper up ahead, I swung the bike around and flicked up my turned around and saw me, a look of relief crossed her face. She grabbed her skateboard, and leapt on the back of the bike.

"Go! Seaweed brain, Go!" I didn't need any more prompting, I raced down the street and back towards the apartment.

I abandoned the bike around a street away. Piper looked at me like I was crazy.

"I don't want to accidentally lead them home," I explained and I handed piper her skateboard and got on mine. We kept on our helmets to protect our head.

We raced down to the end of the block and swerved around the corner. Piper and I wove between each other in a sort of wavy lines that intersected. I could hear the Zombies gaining on us, so I looked over at piper and made a fist and then held up three fingers. It was a language that we'd developed when we were younger, when we were skating away from bullies, or the occasional police car that wanted to know if we'd seen Clarisse LaRue burning out Mr Jenkin's car down by the drains. Again.

We rounded the corner and jumped off our boards, they rolled for a bit before we both scooped them up at the same time.

"Hey, McLean, everything okay?" I opened the door to the apartment block. Pipes was normally really smiley, but I suppose that this was literally her worst nightmare come true, McLean could never stomach zombie movies, we watched one once, and I'd had to turn it off half way through because she looked a little bit like all of the blood had been drained from her body, and she screamed bloody murder when ever she saw a Zombie on the screen.

"Yeah, Uh, it's just, zombies..." she trailed off and I noticed a blush in her cheeks.

Piper was Cherokee on her dad's side, and white European on her mother's. It was where she got her eyes from, and her slightly paler skin. She cut her hair using a pair of scissors that had seen better days somewhere around the first world war. And she often braided feathers into her hair. She looked like her usual self; black skinny jeans, a loose blue shirt with a colourful logo splashed across her chest. Her hoodie was tied around her waist. It was hot pink with blood splatter transfers. I glanced down at her Converse shoes to see which ones she was wearing, I smiled when I saw the smiley faces with vampire fangs drawn on in sharpie.

"Nice shoes, Mclean," we jogged up the stairs and she rolled her eyes.

"At least they're original, look at you," I guess I was dressed a little bit more normally than usual. Tightish dark blue jeans, a dark green shirt with a green lantern ring on the front and a lamp on the back. I'd discarded my hoodie earlier, it had just been a plain black one, I had heaps of others like it.

"Shut it, Mclean."

"Whatever, Jackson." Ever since we were kids, McLean had always gone by her last name,and had started using mine. I was pretty sure that a lot of the kids that went to the local skate park believed that my first name was Jackson instead of my last.

When we reached my door, I knocked and called out, "Mum," really softly. The next thing I knew, the door was thrown open and Annabeth slapped me in the face.

"What the hell were you thinking!" she grabbed me by the collar and shoved me inside. An then she gently pulled McLean

"Hello, Mclean, I'm glad that seaweed brain over there didn't get you killed." I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not completely stupid Annabeth, I can do _some_ things right." Annabeth glared at me in a way that said that she thought I was very wrong.

I felt something on my waist,I looked down and smiled at Kory. I scooped her up. Kory was small for her age, and as the baby of the family, she was treated as such. She lay her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes.

Ah, yes, my little sister was guilt tripping me. She'd been spending way to much time around Annabeth.

"Kory, go sit with Mum," I told her softly. She clung onto me for a little while and then allowed me to put her down on the ground. She ran into the living room to my Mum.

Annabeth, Piper and I were all standing in the hallway. Annabeth looked a little bit like she wanted to rip me to shreds, and Piper still seemed strangely tired. Though I supposed that it was and ungodly hour. Honestly, forcing students to be in school for eight thirty? What an idea.

I glanced down at my watch and arched my eyebrows. How could it only be quarter to eight? I'd already been almost killed three times this morning. How was that even possible?

"Oh, for the god's sakes seaweed brain! No you can't! ou are the stupidest person _ever_!" I just rolled my eyes at her.

"Of course I am, Annabeth. Of course I am." All that I got was a glare. She spun around and huffed as she stalked back to her bedroom.

Well, I'd definitely pissed her off then.

Mclean smirked at me, she (like Kory, my mother, and most of the other girls that I know) seems to think that Annabeth and I are on the brink of a relationship and confessing our eternal and undying love for each other. She also thinks that whenever she calls me stupid or dumb or annoying, she's secretly doing it just so that I'll keep annoying her and paying attention to her.

Pipes is crazy.

Piper and I walked into my room. She saw the books on the bed and smiled.

"Annabeth's started making you study already?" McLean picked one up and read the back cover.

"Interesting," she muttered.

"Mclean, where's your dad?" she froze, and I knew that I'd hit a nerve.

"Our gardener came in this morning and told us that there was thing weird guy that bit him, so my dad put disinfectant on the cut, and I went upstairs to get dressed..." her voice broke. "He bit my dad, Percy, he shoved him or something, so dad hit his head when her fell. He was unconscious, and the zombie was just-" I hugged her. She started sobbing against my shoulder.

"Hey, it's okay, Pipes, everything's fine," she was still crying, I felt really terrible and really awkward.

After a minute of crying, Mclean dried her eyes, sat up and and blew her nose.

"Okay," she said finally. "I'm better know."

"Good, because I have no idea what to when people cry," Mclean rolled her eyes and punched me on the shoulder.

"You're a dork, Jackson."

"And you're a nerd, Mclean,"we both rolled our eyes, and Piper seemed little better.

"You're an incestuous pervert."

"How am I incestuous?" I glared at her.

"You're in love with Annabeth!"

"You're in love with Jason Grace! That's even worse," Piper threw a pillow at me and snatched it out of the air and used it as a shield against the other stuff that Mclean threw at me.

"Jackson."

"Yeah?"

"You know you didn't deny that you're in love with Annabeth?"

I dropped the pillow from in front of my face and gave Mclean a dirty look.

"I'm not in love with Annabeth!"

"You like her though," I was about to deny it, but lying to Mclean was not a good idea. Because Mclean could tell when you were lying. And she wouldn't hesitate to use her unique powers of persuasion to get me to tell the truth.

"Okay, so I like her a bit," Mclean smirked at me, we'd had this conversation before, once, about two years ago, I realised that I was actually did like Annabeth, if only a little.

It was when I went to Yancy. I'd gone for an entire year without my mortal enemy, and it was painful. There was just... no longer any point to life. It was sad, but my main source of high school was tormenting Annabeth Chase.

I liked to think that Annabeth suffered as much as me, but I wasn't that dumb. On the first day of the next year, Annabeth's shoulders had slumped and she got this look on her face, like she was condemning herself to a life of hell.

Which wasn't far from the truth, but, whatever.

"Only a bit, Percy? Really?" Piper winked at me and grabbed my Coke off of my bedside table. She spat in it and then proceeded to drink it.

"You're evil, Piper."

"No kidding." Mclean grinned at me and swung her legs onto the floor.

"Have you rung the guys?" she pulled out her phone and started going through her phone book.

"Uh, no." Mclean rolled her eyes and started making phone calls.

"Percy, make a list."

"Of what?" Mclean just tossed a notebook and a pen at me. "Am I Santa Claus? Whoever kills the most zombies get's the best presents?"

"No, Percy," she looked at me, her face grim. "You're making a list of who's alive and who's not answering their phone," the stupid zombie based parody of jingle bells that was forming in my head vanished. I looked at her silently. She held the phone to her ear.

"Hey, Thalia, have you turned on the news?"


	3. Chapter 3

Percy

So far, I'd made a list of all of our friends that we could contact.

Thalia was alive and well. She thought we were playing a practical joke until she found her next door neighbour outside and he tried to eat her. She went downstairs to Nico's apartment, where he was asleep and dragged him upstairs into her flat. Her mother was in California, her father was long gone, and her brother was missing. I felt sorry for Thals, she was incredibly over protective of her brother.

Grover was about to go outside before his girlfriend practically threw him against the wall and forced him to watch the TV. She'd dragged it out of the cupboard after she saw a squirrel being eaten my a zombie.

I went through my contacts, a lot of people weren't answering, and that worried me. Because most of them were what I'd call close friends.

"So, who have we got alive so far?" Piper asked and I looked at the list on my lap.

"Thalia, Nico, Grover and Juniper," I looked at Mclean, she frowned. "No more?"

"Nope, and no Jason," she rolled her eyes.

"You're a dork."

"Nerd,"

"Seaweed brain," I fell of the bed in surprise. Annabeth had come in the door, and decided to scare me. She was such a smart ass.

"Thanks for that, Annie," I rubbed the back of my head.

"You're welcome, Percy," she smirked at me a little bit and then looked at my list.

"Are these the people who are answering or not?"

"They're the ones who are answering." Annabeth frowned.

"Only a few of my friend's are answering too."

"Who?"

"Frank, Hazel and Leo," I scoffed.

"Great, No Clarisse? The one time in the world that the psycho bi- I mean girl would have been useful, and she's missing," Annabeth shrugged and dropped down onto my bed.

"I guess we'll just have to survive without her." Mclean looked back through her contact list. Obviously searching for anyone she missed.

Annabeth picked my phone up off the table and started fiddling with it.

"Hey, what're you doing?" I asked suspiciously.

"I'm switching your phone to vibrate now, with our luck, your phone'll go off in the middle of the night and wake up every zombie within hearing range." she rolled her eyes at me. and tossed me back my phone. "I've also changed my caller ID from 'Smart Ass' to 'Annabeth'." I gave her a small smirk, and she just scoffed and rolled her eyes again.

"Well, smart ass suits you better than Annabeth," I snickered.

"I'm not a smart ass!"

"Sure you aren't, you're an almighty wise one who knows so much more than me." I picked up one of the books and threw it at her.

"At least your speaking sensibly now," I couldn't think of a comeback off the top of my head so I just picked up one of the books off the bed and started reading.

Annabeth already had one in her hand, she started reading it as well.

"Uh, okay, I'm going to go and steal your computer, if you don't mind, Annabeth?"

"Go ahead," Annabeth frowned "It's on my desk, I think," Mclean walked out of the door, leaving me and Annabeth alone, in my room.

"Annabeth, on the way here, did you see any people?" I asked. Annabeth frowned at me and sat up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there were barley any people alive out there, in fact I didn't see any. No homeless people, no crazy people out screaming about the apocalypse, no people running home like we were. Where'd they all go? I mean, on those news reports, the people..., they couldn't have all been turned into zombies, could they?" Annabeth hesitated for a second.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Well, I was thinking, what if it travels through the air?" she was completely silent as she stared down at the front cover of the book in her lap.

"I don't know, Percy, I'm just as confused as you are," That didn't really made me feel confident, I'd always relied on Annabeth to have the hard answers.

"Great to know." I muttered.

"Just keep reading, you moron.

Three hours later, I was half way through Max Brook's book, '*World War Z*' and I was getting more and more freaked out by the whole thing.

Did you know that some Zombies don't digest the flesh of their victims, they just keep eating and eating until their stomachs split open? Or that they use their moans to tell other Zombies where there's food so that they can swarm it? They don't need any kind of food to survive and if you were to chop a zombie in half, the top of the body would continue to go on living (if you can even call it living,) While the brain was intact, the zombie was still alive.

Annabeth had gone into her room to talk to Mclean, and they were discussing things like food supplies and safe houses. When I'd gone into check in on them, they were highlighting places on a big map of Manhattan that they thought would supply food, shelter or weapons.

Annabeth had told Mclean about how I'd used my skateboard as a sort of club, and she thought that it was a good idea.

Annabeth took her three antique-replica knives out of their box and offered one to Mclean, one to my Mum, and kept one for herself. She then pulled out her father's sword. It was another Greek antique-replica that looked brand new. It sparkled bronze in the light. I thanked her, and wondered if she knew that I'd been taught to fight with a sword.

By lunchtime, Annabeth had us on rations. I didn't complain. There was no point.

The girls had drawn up a chart of what was in the pantry and how long it'd be able to keep us healthy. They'd decided that it would last something like two weeks, if we were careful with out food consumption.

It was six in the evening when I had the idea to raid Gabe's fridge.

"We can go down there, take the keys from his body and take the food. He's not going to be needing it, he's..." I gave them a meaningful look. Piper and Annabeth still seemed unconvinced.

"Are we even sure if Gabe has any food? I mean, he's a grotty old man, for all we know he could live of rat's tails and dead spiders," Annabeth shuddered when Mclean mentioned the spiders. Annabeth hated spiders.

"He has food," my mother butted in. She was sitting on the other side of the room, With Kory's head in her lap. My little sister had drifted off an hour ago, and thankfully hadn't been woken up by my talking.

"How do you know, Mrs Jackson?" Mclean still calls my Mum Mrs Jackson, mostly out of habit than anything else. Even though technically, she's Mrs. Chase.

"Because I heard him going through the cupboards next door, and he tried to get me to go with him," My looked us all over.

"Do you think we should go and get it?" Mclean asked my mother.

"I think that all three of you are almost adults, and should start making decisions about how you'll survive Annabeth, your father is missing, your mother isn't answering her phone, and I won't be here forever. Piper, you're father was your only parent, and he died, and Percy, I'm your only family, and as I said, I won't be here forever. You're all almost adults, an that means that you're old enough to start looking after yourselves." My mother gave me a pointed look and gently moved Kory's head off of her lap.

"Uh, okay?" Mclean and Annabeth rolled their eyes at me.

"I think that we should go an get the food. Better now, before someone else can get at it," Annabeth looked at Mclean.

"What do you think?"

"I don't like it."

"Well, That's two votes yes, and one vote no, so I say that Percy and I take a couple of shopping bags downstairs and grab some stuff now." Annabeth stood up from the couch and looked at me expectantly. "C'mon, seaweed brain," she rolled her eyes.

"Coming." I followed Annabeth into the hall, she picked up her knife and I grabbed my skateboard.

"You're not going to use the sword?"

"To heavy,and I can't take my skateboard and the sword," I shrugged, and Annabeth nodded like I was making sense.

"You don't want to take a tank to fist fight," I didn't actually know what that meant, but I just agreed anyway.

**Annabeth**

I looked over at Percy, he seemed a little confused, and I decided to use less complex metaphors in the future.

"Let's go, Seaweed brain," I rolled my eyes at him. I'd changed shirts, because my other shirt had been covered in zombie guts, which was, quite frankly, gross.

I peeked outside the door, Gabe was still crumpled on the ground. I wasn't sure if he was dead or knocked out. I hoped it was the second. I didn't know how well Percy would cope with killing a person that he knew. No matter how much he'd wanted to batter Gabe to death in the first place.

I searched through his grotty green jacket and pulled a set of keys out.

Frank was standing by the door, I'd almost forgotten about the dog, so I let him inside the apartment and he obediently went and sat next to Kory.

"Gabe's Apartment's in the basement, isn't it?" Percy whispered.

"Yeah," I shuddered. Basements. Spiders.

Great. Just Great.

Percy and I walked down the stairs quietly, but the noise still echoed around us like we were in some kind of cave.

"Do you think that there are any more zombies in the building?"

"Uh, probably," I admitted and I didn't think that it made him feel any better.

"Great, I'll be on the look out then," Percy walked down the stairs with his skateboard raised, ready to clobber anything even remotely zombie like.

I wouldn't normally even have admitted it to myself, but having Percy in front of me made he feel a little better about being out in the open. But as I said, I would never tell him that, his ego's already the size of a skyscraper, there's no reason to make it any bigger.

As we weaved down the stairs, I kept on glancing behind me just to check that there was nothing there. I was very, very nervous. Maybe I shouldn't have come out after all... No, I did the right thing. It would be unfair to make Mclean come out with Percy when she'd voted to stay inside.

And to be honest, who'd want to spend so much time with my step brother? I mean, the boy's the most annoying person known to man, except maybe for Callie, from school. The bitch ruined my best sketches.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we opened Gabe's apartment to find rubbish strewn all over a dirty grey carpet, dead roaches and flies were scattered in the corners and I saw more than a few spider's webs.

Ick.

Gabe's apartment smelt exactly like he did, of beer and sweat with an unpleasant whiff of urine.

I looked at Percy, I pointed to myself, and then at the kitchen, and then I pointed at him, and pointed to the dining room. I then put my finger over my lips. He nodded and I hoped that my rudimentary sign language had made it through that thick skull of his.

I crept into the kitchen, checking around for zombies as I did. There didn't seem to be any, so I walked over to the fridge and opened it up.

There were half a dozen boxes of beer at the bottom, and lump of mouldy bread in the top of the fridge, there was some milk in the door, but when I opened the door, I found that the milk was so old, that it'd turned to yogurt, and then the yogurt had turned into some kind of solid and there was now a miniature ecosystem inside it. I didn't bother smelling it, for all I knew, the plants inside it had evolved to produce chloroform or something.

I started searching through the cupboards, which all seemed to be empty. I was about to start going through the drawers when I heard a loud banging followed by lots of curses.

Obviously Percy didn't understand the simplest of signs.

I rushed into the dining room, the first thing that I noticed was the brightly coloured cans that were scattered all over the floor, the second thing that I saw was Percy doing some kind of demented rain dance, and then I noticed the zombie under the table that was currently trying to take a bit out of his legs.

I wasn't really thinking about how easy it would be for me to get killed, I just took one look at the wobbly legs of the thick, ancient table and the hairline crack that ran right through the middle, and jumped onto the table with all of my weight, sending half a dozen tins of skittering to the ground and splitting the table in half and crushing the grey skinned monster a tonne of oak wood.

"Thanks, Wise girl," Percy grinned at me and I arched my eyebrow.

"Wise girl?"

"Yeah, the owl, that you used to have on your T-shirt," he pointed to my chest and I looked down,

"What owl? There was never an owl on this shirt."

"Not on that one, The day that you first called me seaweed brain, I called you wise girl, because your t-shirt had owls on it."

"That was the best that you could come up with?" Percy just grinned at me and started loading the cans of food back onto the broken table. He pulled a few old plastic bags out of his pockets and started filling them up.

"I'll carry, you defend, okay?" He looked up at me like he expected me to be fine with that.

"Why, because you're a big strong boy?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, because you seem to be better at killing the unhappy undead than I am," He gestured to the now unanimated corpse that had been trying to kill him only a minute ago.

I paused for a moment, and now happy that I knew that Percy wasn't trying to be a knight in shining armour on his noble steed. I tried imagining Percy as a knight, but laughed the thought away in my mind. Knights were bound by things like codes of Chivalry and their sworn duty to protect their king, I would have thought that Percy was more pirate like than anything else. An Orlando Bloom style pirate, not the bloodthirsty murderers that actually roamed the Caribbean in the eighteenth century.

And with that thought, I started comparing Orlando to Percy, Orlando won, but only because Percy had really annoying smirk. It made me want to drag him into a room and beat it right off of his face. Snarky little as-.

"Uh, are we going to go, or do I have to stand here and wait for you to finish staring at the wall?" I looked up at Percy, who was standing next to me, he was looking at it with interest. Like he wanted to know why I'd been staring at it for so long.

"It's nothing important," I waved the incident away.

"Uh, kay, let's go," Percy started walking up stairs with me trailing along behind him.

We were half way up when Percy stopped.

"Hey," I touched his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Annabeth? can you hear that?" Percy seemed terrified, the blood had drained from his face, and he felt tense.

"Hear what?" Percy frowned for a second and then started walking again.

"Nothing," he shrugged it off and we kept walking up the stairs. I followed him upwards, I wondered why he'd stopped, and if he had better hearing than I did and I was about to be swarmed by a thousand bloodthirsty zombies.

I hoped not, but I wasn't about to run the risk. So I made Percy walk faster and was even more careful than before.

When we got up to the apartment, we unloaded all of the food into the cupboards, Percy seemed a little off, He vanished into his room afterwards, saying that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. I didn't buy it at all.

I decided that I'd better go and check on him, just to make sure that he was okay, and not dying on the bedroom floor, when I knocked on the door, all that I heard was silence, which was a little weird, Percy was hardly ever silent, the boy had ADHD really badly,and it seemed strange that he hadn't said anything stupid before he went to bed, so I was starting to get a little concerned.

"Percy," I knocked again, I heard shuffling from inside and the door opened to reveal a very flustered looking Percy.

"Yeah?" he asked, I looked around his room through the crack in his door. Stuff was thrown everywhere, I wondered what was going on with him. Though, considering that today, we'd experienced the beginnings of a Zombie apocalypse. And yes, I'll admit that it was only the beginning. Zombies seemed to be everywhere, I'd been doing a little hacking and I'd logged into the city's CCTV Cameras and I'd seen hundreds of zombies just wandering around aimlessly.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Uh," he looked at me like I'd gone insane. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He frowned for a second, and then looked back at me. "Don't answer that question."

"Okay," we just sort of stood there and watched each other for a minute.

"Can I..." I gestured to his messy bed.

"No."

"Percy Jackson, I order you to let me in right now,"

"Oh." His brow creased, like he was trying to figure out if I could actually order him to do anything. But before he realised that I couldn't I pushed under his arm and into his messy room.

"I came to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About today, you know, in general" Percy shifted from foot to foot.

"I don't really want t-"

"Percy, there are zombies outside. This is no time to have an identity crisis,"

"I'm not having an identity crisis! I'm just..."

"Just what?"

"Just trying to get out of this conversation." I kicked his leg.

"Take this seriously, seaweed brain," Percy smiled a bit when I called him by his old nickname. I doubt that he'd been able to appreciate the sentimentality before when there was a chance that we'd be violently murdered at any second by a horde of old ladies and investment bankers.

"I'll try, Wise girl," I rolled my eyes, he was such a smart ass.

"Anyway, are you sure that you're okay with this whole thing?"

"Yeah, it's always been my dream to be ripped apart by zombies," I kicked him again.

"Ow! Quit it!"

"Only when you stop being a sarcastic idiot."

"Didn't you tell me once that I would ever stop being an idiot?"

"Fine, stop being sarcastic then," Percy grinned at me and dropped down onto his bed.

"Okay, I'll try, just for you,"

"Good, then," he had his arms folded behind his head. He looked completely comfortable, with his hands folded behind his head, and his legs crossed.

"So how do you really feel?"

"Like I'm in the middle of a zombie apocalypse," I was about to hit him again, but he grabbed my arm.

"You call that serious?"

"Yes, Annabeth, I'm being completely serious. I feel like I'm in the zombie apocalypse. I'm terrified, exhausted and worried. I'm terrified because I keep hearing them, moving about, moaning, and exhausted because I'm pretty sure that my adrenalin rush only wore off a few minutes ago, and I'm worried that if I ever go to my friend's apartments that I'm going to find them dead or zombified." Percy fell back against his pillows, I nodded blankly.

"Huh, I guess you are human after all."

"That's all that you have to say? I tell you about how this whole thing may turn me into a moron that sings nursery rhymes while skipping through the streets kissing zombies in the hope that they'll turn into magical prince, and that's all that you have to say?" I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of Percy in a frilly pink dress holding a fairy wand.

"And now you're laughing, thank you, Annabeth, this conversation has made me feel so much better." Percy crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

"You're pouting."

"I am not!"

"You are, don't try to lie to me, Seaweed Brain."

"I don't pout, Wise girl, I'm nearly an adult."

"Physically, maybe, but mentally, of, well, you have the brain of a ten year old."

"My little sister's a ten year old genius, what d'ya say to that?"

"You must have traded brains at some point," he rolled his eyes.

"Thanks, It's always nice to know that you've got a little girl's brain. Shouldn't I have turned into a girl by now?"

"No, I think that your body would have continue to send out testosterone, not estrogen..." he gave me a blank look and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"Girl hormones and boy hormones."

"And what do they do?"

"You went to sex ed classes, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't, I skipped them,"

"Really? With your reputation?" I laughed. It was well know around school that Percy liked to sleep around.

"My reputation,?" Percy chuckled, like it was funny that he'd played with girl's emotions.

"Yeah, I heard that you once slept with four girls in one night? And then got into a fight with another guy over a fifth" Percy pushed himself up on his elbows and smirked at me.

"You shouldn't believe in rumours, Annabeth Chase, because they're hardly ever true,"

"Then what really happened?"

"I was taking these two girls to their friends because Drake and his friends were downstairs, and you know what happens to any poor drunk girl around them. And the 'fifth' girl was Thalia, she was as drunk as anything and Drake'd been making out with her on the couch."

"But there were supposed to be-"

"People exaggerate,"

"So how many girls have you actually slept with?"

"Three, both of my girlfriends and once with this girl that I met once at this Party..."

"Well, what d'you know, your not a complete ass after all," he grinned at me.

"Thanks, Chase, you'v really made my day,"

"You're Welcome. I should probably go to bed now," I stood up to leave but when I got to the door Percy called after me.

"Don't I get a kiss?" when I looked back at him, he was smirking like a cat.

"Only if you brush your teeth," Percy stopped, and nodded.

"I should, actually," he moved past me, and into our bathroom.

I rolled my eyes. Trust Percy to forget something so simple.

I went back to my bedroom and got changed into my pajamas. And then I pulled out a couple of the books that Percy had given me. I frowned when I realised that most of them were the ones that I had decided were useless. In fact, most of the useful ones were missing, I considered going looking, for them, but decided to do it the next day.

No use now.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but I do know that I woke up at four in the morning to Sally screaming.


	4. On Hiatus

**A/N **

**Yes, I suck that much. **

**Anyway, I'll be coming back to this story, because I'm going to be participating in a big bang, and I need to write 50,000 words in three months. AND I'm having major surgery on my mouth soon (jaw adjustments, ugh.) And I won't have time to write anything else on this story. But I may upload a little bit of the chapter that I've already written, just to let you all of the hook. **


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